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Durex Markets Condoms Designed for 13-16 Year Olds

By Peter J. Smith

LONDON, July 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A condom manufacturer has set its sights on British youth, intending to market condoms designed for young teenagers in the United Kingdom as soon as 2007, provoking outrage from parents and pro-family organizations, according to the Sun, a British newspaper.

Durex, the condom manufacturer, intends to market a smaller, 49 mm condom to Britain’s youth, which it introduced in Germany just last week. The company claims the condom is also easier to put on for those who are inexperienced.

“It is aimed at youths between 13 and 16, where a not insignificant number engage in unprotected sex,” said a Durex spokesman.

The specially designed condom has garnered the approval of Britain’s Family Planning Association which has said, “All initiatives that promote young people to have safe sex should be encouraged,” according to the Sun.

The company sees the United Kingdom as a market for the condom, since the UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, and British teens on average engage in sexual intercourse for the first time when they are 15.

However, Matthew O’Gorman, spokesman for the pro-life charity LIFE, blasted the deliberate marketing of the condoms to young teenagers as “sick and irresponsible.”

“We know that teenagers engage in risky behaviour. If it’s messing around on roads or taking drugs, we teach them not to – because it’s bad for them,” added O’Gorman.

“But when it comes to sex, we do the opposite – by throwing condoms at the problem.”

A recent exposé of condoms by Human Life International indicates that the failure rate of condoms due to bursting, tearing, and slipping off is 8.08%, or 1 in 12. The rate of pregnancy in women with partners who always use condoms is 15% within the first year, a rate that increases to 80% after ten years.

Recent research has also consistently dispelled the myth that condoms are effective at preventing the spread of STDs.

Read the HLI exposé at: http://www.hli.org/condom_expose.html

See the Sun’s report:
Outrage at Durex for kids
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006330430,00.html

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